Three Times Emma Didn't Love Hook, And One Time She Did
by mommanerd
Summary: A short one-shot, looking back over Emma's feelings over the course of Season 3


**~Mary Margaret~**

"Do you love him, Emma?"

"Who? Hook?" She treated her mother to one of her patented eyerolls. "Please."

"I just wondered," Mary Margaret answered, "since he seems to be head over heels about you." She pushed a huge leafy branch out of her way before continuing. "He had to be telling the truth, you know, or the Echo Cave wouldn't have built that bridge."

Emma really, really wanted the subject dropped. "Does it matter? He's a horny pirate stuck on an island that we may never be able to get off of. Can we let it go?"

"But you do find him attractive…"

"Says who?"

"You kissed him."

"He asked for it."

"But you didn't have to kiss him. I wouldn't have."

Okay, Emma couldn't help smiling at that. "You have David around, and Hook knows he'd be a dead man if he even tried anything with you." So why had she kissed him, really? She'd met plenty of men in her bounty hunting days who had tried to put the moves on her, and they usually ended with broken fingers and ice packs on their laps while she hauled them down to the police station. Earlier she'd told Mary Margaret that she'd kissed him because she was feeling happy about David. She was surprised that one went over without question from her perceptive mother. Happy? Yes, I'm Happy Girl. I'm going to kiss random men because they're there and happen to be very cute. Cute? So maybe she did find him attractive. A little.

"If you don't want to talk about it, I understand. But I'm here in case you do."

"Let's just find Henry, okay?"

**~Neal~**

"So what's the deal with Hook, Emma?"

She paused in her spear whittling, long enough to glare at him. "There is no 'deal.'"

Neal wasn't going to let it drop. She knew his expressions well enough. "You wouldn't be so prickly about this if it didn't mean anything.

She dropped the stick. "I'm prickly because nobody will let it go. It was a kiss. Kissing. So what if I kissed him? It's over and won't happen again."

"Wait a minute… you kissed him?

"Yeah. So?" She was tempted to pick the stick back up and poke him with it. Hard. "He asked for it."

"And you've suddenly become the giving type. Or is it the giving-in type?"

"We aren't going to talk about this, Neal."

She picked up another stick and set her mind to pointedly ignore him, but she could feel his gaze over and over and over. Finally, she gave up. "What?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

Not what she expected to hear.

"After what I've put you through and just all of our stuff… I'm just sorry, Emma. I can't expect you to not move on and never find love again."

Love? Who said anything about love? "Neal, I'm not in love with anybody."

Neal sighed. "Maybe not, but I know him, and he's got all the signs."

Emma shook her head. "That's him. Once we get out of here and he can move on, he'll get over it."

"You know that we're talking about Hook, right? I've never known him to let anything go. Ever. Not even me."

She really didn't understand what he was talking about. "I thought you only knew each other for a little while when you were a boy."

"I was a boy for a couple of hundred years. He gave me to Pan…"

"WHAT?"

"…and then stuck around here in Neverland until I escaped. He doesn't let go of people he loves."

Ever?

**~David~**

"How are you feeling, David?"

They'd made it onto the ship and away from Neverland. She had to admit, the ride was thrilling. She'd just finished checking on Henry, who was sleeping peacefully down in the captain's quarters. It would be nice to relax, but something felt a little off about the situation. Things had tied up too neatly. Nothing ever really worked out like that, and she'd learned that hard lesson over and over again. David had been standing at the rail, enjoying the incredible sight of the ocean, hundreds of feet below them, and she'd gone to join him. He had a way of calming her.

"I'm fine, Emma." He looked around the ship, and the faces of the ones they were bringing back with them. "It's a good thing Hook had lots of room."

"Definitely a fuller load for the return trip."

David gave her shoulders a squeeze. "You did a great job of talking to those boys."

"I guess I could relate," she said.

"I don't want to push you, Emma, but I hope that you don't still feel that way, like a lost girl."

Lost girl. The first time someone had pointed that out to her, they'd been climbing a beanstalk. He'd been right. "I'm learning more about who I really am every day now, it seems."

"I promise we will be here for you."

He had such a good heart, her father. But it was hard to let go of the self-reliance she'd spent her entire life building around herself. These boys, they'd relied on Pan for how long? She couldn't wrap her head around it. Neal had been one of them for longer than she'd ever realized, and it explained a lot that she'd never understood before. And then there was Hook.

"He acts like it's no big deal that he's sailing a ship through the air," she told her father.

He glanced over his shoulder and grinned at their captain, so in his element with the wind whipping against him. "I have to admit that in a lot of ways I was wrong about him."

"He is definitely a pirate," she said.

"But there's a good man in there, too," David said. "He tries to bury it under rum and leather and quests for vengeance, but he's really trying to figure it all out, just like the rest of us."

Emma nodded.

"And I have to appreciate his taste in women."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

David kissed her forehead. "It means that I think my daughter is pretty damned loveable, and the fact that he sees that means he can't be entirely bad."

She laughed at that. "So if I bring home a man and say, 'Hi Dad, this is Killian and he likes me, so he's not entirely bad' you'll give me your blessing?"

"It's more than like," David said, "And you brought up the Killian part."

"Don't read anything into that," she said. "It's not like I love him."

**~Killian~**

"There's not a day that will go by that I won't think of you."

"Good."

She'd wanted to say more, but there were so many others around that she needed to say goodbye to, and there wasn't enough time for any of it. It had torn at her heart, to see their faces crumbling. It seemed like she'd only just found them, and so much was unsaid.

And now, it was months later. She had her family back, and her town. For the first time in her life, she really felt like it was hers, and that she belonged, and she was loved. Really, really loved. She had a little brother now, and friends. And yet, where was Killian?

She'd left him at the barn and gone running back to Granny's, and she hadn't seen him since. He wasn't anywhere in the inn that she could see. Maybe he was outside. It wasn't like him to not be around somewhere.

"Excuse me," she rose from the booth. "I need to go check on something."

Granny intercepted her after a few steps. "He's out front," she said. "Been there for while. And it's chilly out tonight."

"Thank you, Granny."

And there he'd been. Toying with his ever present rum bottle. She sat, and told him about the book, and thanked him for… well, for everything. And then he'd told her, and it felt like the world stopped moving.

His ship. Gone. For her. And she hadn't even ever asked or considered it. She didn't have the words to express what it meant, so she kissed him, and kissed him and kissed him. After a while, they'd moved inside to join the party. She'd slid her hand into his and didn't drop it until they'd sat at the counter. Ruby brought them cake and Granny added a little glass cup full of frothy pink liquid. A pirate drinking fruit punch. He'd laughed about the color, but drank it anyway.

Emma Swan, bounty hunter, self-sufficient woman. In love with Captain Hook.

Who knew?


End file.
